Lounging at the Pool
by Black.Rose.Authoress
Summary: Being forced to go to the pool by his younger brother is annoying enough. Add a persistent Spaniard and you get a very unhappy Romano. Semi-AU.


A/N: This is an AU. Kind of a practice AU, since I'm considering writing out a multi-chap set in this same sort of setting. If enough people like this, then I'll probably start working on it.

* * *

**Lounging at the Pool**

Stupid brother. Stupid manipulative brother. And yes, he was manipulative. Most people would scoff at the idea that Feli—sweet, little Feli who had started crying in biology class when they'd had to dissect frogs—could ever show any sort of darker, more manipulative side.

Psh, they should just be happy that they didn't live with him. He knew exactly how to make his brother agree to whatever he wanted. Usually through sheer persistence.

Which was why he was sitting here, his feet dangling in the pool water, his arms crossed irritably over his chest as he glared at where his brother was splashing around with the potato bastard. Or, more like his brother was splashing around and blabbering on at a hundred miles an hour about whatever popped into his head, while the potato bastard occasionally nodded to humour him.

Stupid potato bastard.

He was almost as stupid as…

"Lovi!"

Lovino winced at the cry. Him.

A very very soaked figure immediately hugged him from behind, almost knocking both of them into the pool. It was only Lovino's quick reflexes—and expectation that this was going to happen—that kept them both on the pool deck.

"Bastard! You're getting me wet!"

He turned around to continue yelling at him, but froze suddenly, the words dying on his tongue.

Shit…

Antonio was standing behind him, absolutely soaked. His dark, curled hair clinging to his cheeks, a few drops running down his tanned skin. He was only wearing a pair of red swim trunks, leaving his chest bare. His rather muscular chest…

No! No, no, no. He was not ogling Antonio like some stupid lovestruck girl. Lovino hurriedly turned away, crossing his arms over his own bare chest. And not because he was suddenly rather aware of the fact that his own body, in comparison to Antonio's, was much scrawnier. Stupid bastard.

"Lovi~ I didn't think that you'd agree to come to this." Antonio remarked in his overly cheerful voice. "I thought that you didn't like to swim."

Lovino glared down at the water, irritated by the statement. Even more irritated by that than by the moron standing behind him. It wasn't that he didn't like to swim. It was more… He didn't like the water. He wasn't scared of it! He just didn't like it. How it was all wet and you'd come out and be cold and everything. And how it seemed sometimes to want to drag you down and…

No! He hurriedly shook his head and turned his glare back to Antonio. "Feli wouldn't stop bothering me until I agreed to come. If I'd known that you were coming, though, I would have stayed home."

Antonio's smile quirked upwards in slight amusement at the statement. "Then I'm glad that he didn't tell you. I always come here on open swim days."

He'd have to make sure to yell at Feli later for this. It was probably the reason that the idiot had been so persistent in asking him to come.

"Why don't you come in with me, Lovi? I'll make sure that you're safe."

"No, now go away and leave me…"

And suddenly his words were interrupted by a loud cry of "CANNONBALL!" and a wave of water that washed over him, completely drenching both himself and Antonio. He heard shrieks of anger from some of the girls that had decided to take the chance to sunbathe and hadn't expected that sort of sudden interruption.

He instantly stood, glaring furiously at the center of the pool, where a mop of platinum hair was bobbing up and down as its owner laughed hysterically.

"You're going to pay for that, bastard!" he screamed furiously toward the albino, who was now slowly swimming closer, a smirk plastered over his lips as he stared right at him.

"Sorry, kitty. I forgot that you didn't like the water." He grinned toward Antonio and cocked his head down toward the water. "Come back in, Toni. The kitty's obviously not going to stop being a boring stick-in-the-mud."

Antonio grinned back, obviously nonplussed for having just been soaked by a tidal wave. "I'll be there in a few minutes."

Lovino scowled. Stupid potato bastard's brother. "I'm not a cat, asshole."

Gilbert just grinned. "Sure you aren't, kitty. Come on, Antonio, looks like you rubbed your kitty's fur the wrong way."

"Just a couple more minutes."

Lovino glared at the persistent Spaniard. Obviously he wasn't going to get rid of his annoyance that easily.

His hot annoyance.

Whichever brain cell had just had that thought needed to be brought forward and center. And then shot.

Antonio dropped down onto the pool deck beside him, apparently content to just sit there and kick his legs back and forth in the water as he leaned back on his arms.

Lovino caught a few of the girls ogling him appreciatively and he sent them some irritated glares. Most of them turned away, well aware of the Italian's temper, but a few just smirked back.

"Stupid girls."

"Hm, Lovi?" Antonio questioned. Damn, he hadn't meant to say that out loud.

"Why are you here, bastard? Why aren't you with your freaky albino friend or that blond pervert?" Speaking of the blond pervert, where was he? He'd think that the bastard would be out here front and center, trying to pull off people's swimsuits in the water.

"He got banned from the pool a couple months ago. He apparently pulled the bikini top off of the pool owner's daughter."

See, he'd been right.

"Look, bastard," Lovino finally complained over a few minutes of silence. "Why don't you quit harassing me?"

"I'm not doing anything."

Feli was watching them. Attempting to be surreptitious while doing it, too. Although he kept looking over so often that any idiot would notice exactly what he was doing. Plus he was still pretending to be talking to Ludwig, apparently not noticing that Ludwig was paying him even less attention as he was being harassed by his older brother, who was now attempting to drag him into the deeper end. Failing miserably too, as Ludwig was pretty much a rock in the muscle department and hadn't budged an inch from his spot.

Lovino glared back, causing Feliciano to flush and turn back to his boyfriend-in-denial, jumping onto his back with enough force, when coupled with Gilbert's tugging, to send him face first into the water.

"You're sitting next to me," Lovino complained, half-watching the commotion in the water. "And you keep sticking notes into my locker—and don't think that you're being clever by not signing them. You address them 'to my little tomato,' bastard."

"So you do read them, querido."

"Don't call me stuff in Spanish."

Antonio leaned farther back, letting his head loll back slightly so the water dripped back onto the grass behind them. "So you don't like me being near you or sending you notes…"

"Or texting me randomly during the day, or coming over to my house uninvited. I could get a restraining order against you for that."

Antonio grinned. "But you like it when I send you tomatoes from our garden."

Lovino's glare intensified. "I like tomatoes. That has nothing to do with you. And I only eat them because they'd go to waste otherwise."

"Of course, mi tomatito." He leaned slightly closer, startling Lovino into moving backwards. "Whatever you say."

Too close. Too close. Way way way too close.

And why the fuck did he have to look like that? Lovino was starting to forget the rest of his complaints. Antonio just looked so incredibly hot. And his lips were so close… And he was almost smirking…

That fucking brain cell had friends, apparently. Which were now attempting a mutiny.

So Lovino did the only thing that he could do.

He pushed Antonio away as hard as he could.

Right into the pool.

The splash was loud enough to startle almost everyone surrounding and inside the pool. Feli, Ludwig, and Gilbert stopped their horseplay long enough to turn around and stare at Lovino, who was staring in shock at the spot where Antonio had gone under.

Time seemed to stop for a moment as he failed to resurface. Oh shit. Had he hit his head? Had he knocked him out? Was he going to drown?

And then he bobbed to the surface, coughing.

And Gilbert started to laugh. "Antonio, you got the kitty's dander up!"

Lovino just glared at him. Well aware that he was receiving quite a few death glares from the surrounding girls. Probably most of which who were thinking, 'what in the world could Antonio see in _him_?'

After a few seconds of catching his breath, Antonio finally grinned back up at him and shrugged. "I guess I deserved that."

One of the girls suddenly stood and knelt on the pool deck, offering a hand. "Here, Toni. Let me help you up."

Which most of the girls seemed to take as an open invitation, as they instantly hoarded around him. Some offering towels, others inviting him to come swim with them.

And the entire time, Lovino stewed furiously. Half ticked off at them for daring to touch _his _Antonio and half ticked at himself for pushing him into the pool when he would much rather have just moved those few inches closer and…

Shit. Shit. Shit. He had not just thought that.

Antonio took the offered hand and climbed out, laughing it off and then glancing toward Lovino, who scowled back. He knew that Antonio would go off with them now. He'd head off with one of those girls and…

"Since you don't like the pool, why don't we go get ice cream?"

Lovino stared in shock at the hand that had suddenly slipped in front of him and then slowly followed the arm upwards to a shoulder and then up more to a wide grin and then those warm, perpetually smiling eyes.

"Are you an idiot?"

The grin only widened and he shrugged. "Maybe."

For a moment, Lovino considered pushing him back into the water. Maybe this time he actually would hit his head and right whatever in the world was screwed up with his mind. But, instead he stood and took the offered hand. "Fine, idiot. But just because otherwise you're never going to leave me alone."

Antonio just laughed and used the hand to pull Lovino to his feet. "Fair enough."

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A/N: Can someone say pointless plotless fluff?

Like it? Hate it? Want me to never ever ever ever write an AU again?

If you're wondering about why Prussia is calling Romano a kitty…It's because he kind of reminds me of a cat. A really easily ticked off cat that'll just start hissing at you for nothing… Hmm, probably a stupid comparison to make, but whatever. It works in my head.

So…I added random things in here. Like the fact that Antonio has a fanclub. Don't ask me why, I just totally picture him as having a fanclub of girls if he ever went to a high school. Obviously, Romano would not approve. And Romano is afraid of water. *shrugs* I don't know.


End file.
